Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Money matters

Find financial and money-saving discussions including debt and pension chat on our Money forum. If you're looking for ways to make your money to go further, sign up to our Moneysaver emails here.

Original poster

What savings did you have by age 27?

121 replies

Sweetdisposition91 · 03/05/2018 10:51

Starting to panic a bit as I’m nearly 27, I have absolutely nothing in savings and still live at home!
Been quite frivolous with money I guess and enjoy nice holidays and cars etc, but think now I need to start being sensible and think about the future!

So pure nosiness really, how much do you aim to save per month? And what position were you in when you were 25-30?

OP posts:
CountFosco · 05/05/2018 21:51

There are no pockets in a shroud

Maybe not but at what age do you intend to retire and die? Our savings are for retirement (kids will get the house after we die). And they need to be liquid at that point. Both my Mum and MIL are widowed and probably have about the same amount of money. But MILs money is all in her house and so she has to count her pennies. Mum lives in a smaller house in a cheaper area and has investments generating income. She has a much nicer life. Guess which model we'll be following.

pallisers · 05/05/2018 22:01

about a couple of thousand maybe. I didn't have any debt though and had a good education and a professional qualification and had about 4 years of work behind me - ditto dh. We started saving in our early 30s, mostly into retirement - couldn't afford much other savings because we had children in full-time daycare. We really only started seriously saving in our 40s but the pension stuff we put away in our 30s really paid off. Didn't buy our first house till age 32. I wish I had bought a year or so earlier - the first month/last month/deposit we paid for an apartment then could have been a deposit on a place of our own (with a lot of stress - and I was pregnant so maybe not)

GardenGeek · 05/05/2018 22:05

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

hotpasta · 05/05/2018 22:06

At 27, I was a single mum and had no savings and about £70k of debt.

I'm 38 now, and have a 7 figure sum in savings/investments.

Oly5 · 05/05/2018 22:06

Zero. Debts of £17K.
Met DH and now own a home and have healthy savings. Things change!

GardenGeek · 05/05/2018 22:10

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Delphinius · 05/05/2018 22:10

Overdraft, credit cards and loans. Nada.

NoSquirrels · 05/05/2018 22:14

Do you pay your parents board? What are your outgoings? What's your income?

Gotta say, I think living at home and having NO savings by age 27 is not great... you do need to sort it out. Unless you are on minimum wage - in which case you should be using this time of low outgoings to really crack getting a better paying job - if you need extra study etc now would be the time to do so.

At 27, I was about to buy a first property with DP. £8,000 in savings, and a pension. Was totally skint after we bought, but I'd saved that money on a very low-paying job and whilst paying London rents and s student loan etc. Some of it was savings from e.g. grandmother when I turned 18, or a small inheritance (£500), but mostly it was savings over the 6 years since I graduated.

Zoflorabore · 05/05/2018 22:19

None here at 27, it was the worst year for me. Split up with ds's dad and he owned the house so we moved into a tiny little house with pretty much nothing and had to start again so living was near impossible, never mind saving....

Fast forward 13 years, I'm 40. Savings? None. No excuses really but I am a bit of a spender and our bills are astronomical.

At 40, my parents had just bought their first home after renting, they struggled until late 50's I reckon and are now divorced and separately comfortable as have saved later in life so I'm not too worried.

jumpin26 · 05/05/2018 22:20

I had my current house and had come out of the other end of maternity leave and part time work so was back full time at 27 but we always seemed to have a rolling 1k in savings that would be there after payday and dwindle down through the month!! Hardly anything!!

We had annual holidays and 2 nice cars minimal debt though and this is only 2 years ago

notangelinajolie · 05/05/2018 22:33

No savings. No heating/hot water or even a working bath room or kitchen but we owned our own home. All we could afford was the worst house in the worst town. We were burgled 3 times in as many months. Living on rice, pasta and beans on toast. Definitely no holidays. And no car. And I have no idea why but me and DH remember the hell of it all with great fondness. Happy days.

Longdistance · 05/05/2018 22:33

Zero in savings as I had my first house at 25. I used my savings as a deposit.

Mymouthgetsmeintrouble · 05/05/2018 22:38

None but did have my own home put down a good deposit so mortgage is quite low

aglassofroseplease · 05/05/2018 22:49

None, I'd been teaching for a year. I had no car and lived in a council flat that went with the job. I got my 1st car at 30 it was a 2nd hand Vauxhall viva for £250. Moved to London and continued to rent until I left London in the late 90's because I knew on my teachers salary and Dhs pay we'd never be able to afford to buy. and I bought my 1st house in 2000 - a 2 bed ex council house. I've a BA, a teaching qualification and an MA

Dragongirl10 · 05/05/2018 23:16

well it was a fair while ago, but at 27 l had a flat with manageable mortgage, investment flat rented out and about £10 k of savings....

BUT l didn't stay on at school for A levels, or go to University instead went to a local tec college, started a small business at 21, worked 70+ hours a week ( really!) spent nothing,

Scraped a deposit for a flat, fought tooth and nail to get a mortgage, had a lodger in spare bedroom, whils l slept on blow up mattress with no carpet in my room!
carried on working all the hours possible and reinvested every penny, (friends were going out, buying decent cars, clothes etc) my car was woth £450, and wardrobe full of charity shop finds.

Bought appalling investment flat at 24, after a fire no one wanted it.
Worked all day, fixed up flat all night for 6 weeks, then rented it out.

Carried on saving hence £10k savings at 27, (still had cheap car and rubbish clothes!)

I grew up watching my parents struggle terribly for money at times, despite being really frugal and was determined to be financially secure asap.

Whilst l worked until exhaustion throughout my twenties, l would do it again as it is much easier whan you are young, and l have had much more in the way of choices since.

ShortBook · 06/05/2018 17:34

At 27 didn't have much savings but I had bought a small house (with exDP) four years previously on a 95% mortgage for £54K - the value of that hadn't risen much at all by this point (and by less than what we had spent on it) so had some equity in it but not a lot. By this point I had been contributing to a workplace pension + AVC for 3.5 years (I was contributing 15% in total I think and employer about the same). At 27 I also had some student loan left to pay (I am mid-forties now so it wasn't much by today's standard) and we were paying off a bank loan between us that we look out to buy for various things around the house/cars etc.

By 29 - the bank and student loans were paid off and our small house had increased a lot in value. We sold that one and bought a bigger one - which we then sold a year later for quite a lot more than we bought it for (this time due to splitting up). I had £35K at this point (and almost all of that was due to house price rises not because of me actually saving it + it helped a lot sharing with DP), a car, no debt and whatever was in my pension.

At 27 I think I was paying £25/mth into a savings plan (I can't really remember though!) - it wasn't a priority - paying off the bank/student/car loans was...and when they were cleared (by 29) it was all about paying off the mortgage earlier than the term.

I would first check that you taking full advantage of your employers pension scheme and then look to save at least one-third of your take home pay.

Original poster
Sweetdisposition91 · 07/05/2018 09:22

Ok so I earn about 24k a year in my full time job I also have a weekend job which gives me an extra £240 a month.
My credit report is awful but I’m just waiting for my old defaults to ‘drop off’

I pay £250 a month back to my dad for my car I have £3000 to pay back and at the end of it my car which is currently worth 17k will be my own and should last me years. I know I could sell the car but it’s my pride and joy and it gives me great pleasure so it’s worth having lol.

Rent - 200
Virgin - 40
Car - 250
Car insurance - 160
Diesel - 120
Mobile - 60 (inc insurance, contract finishes August and I will go sim only)
Dogs - 80
Braces - 140 (16 months left as only just got them)
Very account - 20 (only have about 60 left to pay)
I get my nails done once every 3 weeks at £27 a go guess that’s a luxury!
The rest Im usually saving towards a holiday, or gets frittered away on food, clothes going out etc although I never feel like I have much to show for it!

I’m in debt of £800 right now and go on holiday next month so once I’m back I’m going to clear that ASAP then start saving.

How do you all manage to have nice holidays and save at the same time?! Or do you sacrifice the holidays? I feel like that’s what I work for so don’t want to forgo them!

Thanks for all your replies

OP posts:
ShortBook · 07/05/2018 10:24

This wasn't really a conscious decision but the bottom-line is that holidays have never been a priority - I think a lot of the things we have done over the years has been from simply never having the habit. Staying at home has meant that you started your working life with a large disposable income compared to your earnings which has allowed you to do things that we simply couldn't in our early-mid twenties.

ShortBook · 07/05/2018 10:48

Posted too soon.
How much to you spend on holidays?
Do you pay into a pension/how much does your employer contribute?
What is your total take-home pay?
I wouldn't advocate getting rid of all of life's luxuries but you may need to pick and choose a bit more. It might be quite illuminating to keep a closer track on exactly what you do spend for a couple of months so you can be more conscious about it.

EllenJanethickerknickers · 07/05/2018 11:02

At 27 I'd bought my first house so didn't have much spare money. Interest rates were about 10%. My boyfriend moved in with me and we started saving loads towards paying off his negative equity on his flat. We had cheap holidays, French gite or bargain deals to Spain etc. It was a bit of a case of two living as cheaply as one, only one car between us, one set of household bills, no mobiles in those days. We saved about 2/3rds of my salary and lived on the rest. Paid off his mortgage on his flat. We lived really frugally. In hindsight maybe too frugally! Now he's pissed off, we're divorced and he's living the high life with the OW and I have the 3 DC.

Maybe compromise a bit, save by standing order, maybe into a save to buy ISA, and don't be tempted to dip in to it.

Original poster
Sweetdisposition91 · 07/05/2018 11:03

No I don’t have a Pension 🙈
My take home pay averages around £1850 with both jobs I guess.
I’m going to Greece next month which including spending money is costing £800, and aiming to visit my sister in Canada and then go to New York for a couple of nights on the same trip in October which I’m going to need to save £1200 plus £450 flights... but obviously that’s quite a big holiday! I feel as though if I can save for that within the next few months then I should be able to find a balance between general life saving and saving for a holiday.
What do you think is a good amount to have as money for myself based on my earnings? And do I include food or not in that amount?
Thank you!

OP posts:
morespaceneeded · 07/05/2018 11:03

About 50k.

Littlelambpeep · 07/05/2018 11:05

At 27 I was in my second home (sold the first to upgrade ) I rent that house out now and have very little savings but I am 39 and have a safe job good income and new car so I need to start saving again. It is hard due to childcare fees

Original poster
Sweetdisposition91 · 07/05/2018 11:07

Oh also I don’t save for things like birthdays/Xmas/car servicing etc, should I be?
For instance I needed new front discs and pads which set me back 380 quid last month but I just had to pay for it out of my months wages and suffer a bit for a month!

OP posts:
ShortBook · 07/05/2018 11:40

In my twenties I had an expenses account where all of my DD came out from - at the start of the month I transferred, by SO, an amount to cover them all + all the things likely to come up that weren't monthly. It worked well - never had to worry about car maintenance, Christmas, birthdays, annual subscriptions etc. I paid the savings from there too.

I would give yourself 12-15 mths to get your financial house in order - have a frugal year as far as you can (less going out/no holiday etc after this last lot). Aim to have a buffer amount in your current account and your expense account, save a regular amount (aim to get this up to £600/mth+ (a third) - definitely when your car and braces are paid for), start a pension. It's not going to happen overnight - I would start a spreadsheet and make some month by months plans/targets.